Why British workers should -back Palestinian struggle

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Palestine in area of has been an area struggle that has proved difficult to raise within the British labour movement in recent years.

The Zionist lobby here Ilas been very successful, particularly within the Parliamentary Labour Party. So much so that, for example, the then acting Labour Party Chairman lan Mikardo felt free at a Zionist anniversary officials at the Foreign Office as "public schoolboys who share with the Arabs a common tendency towards homosexuality, romanticism and enthust asm for horses"

The publication of the pamphlet Palestine: Our Struggle by the Bradford Labour Movement Campaign for Palestinian Solidarity is therefore very welcome.

It fills a gap by providing a very necessary short account of the Palestinian case backed by an economic use of important statistics and the very effective use of quotations from the Zionist leaders. in Israel whose blunt speaking over the years has done much to confirm the claims made by Palestinians about the nature of the Israeli state.

The pamphlet begins with a brief account of the history and ideology of The authors show how Zionism emerged as the response of a minority of the Jewish middle class to a new wave of anti-semitism which was itself rooted in ine decay of feudalism and the ongoing decline of capitalism.

Rejecting socialist internationalism, the Zionists retreated in the face of antisemitism into another form of racialism.

Believing that it was impossible to eradicate antisemitism in the non-Jewish communities, the Zionists argued that the only solution was the creation of a "safe haven" for Jewry.

However to achieve this meant driving other people from their homeland. Palestinian militants revolt, Zionism developed at a period of history when European colonialism was at its height. In this context, the idea of dispossessing another people of their country was quite acceptable in European middle class circles.

Once Palestine was selected as the country, the Zionists began buying land from absentee Arab landlords and evicting the Arab peasant tenant farmers. A fund was established-the Jewish National Fund-which purchased land for Jewish settlers on condition that the land was never resold to Arabs.

But this process was too slow for the Zionists who under cover of British army suppression of Arab revolts in the 1920s and 1930s began military training.

By 1948-when the Israeli state was created-the Zionists already had 120,000 armed and trained fighters out of a total Jewish population of 589,000.

The UN plan for partition involved handing over 57% of the land area of Palestine to Israel. The new country would contain 510,000 Arabs and 500,000 Jews, while the Arab state would contain 809,000 Arabs and 89,000 Jews.

The Palestinians opposed the plan but they were never consulted. The Western capitalist powers backed the plan and so did Stalin.

When the British withdrew from Palestine in 1948 war immediately erupted.

The Israelis seized the opportunity presented by the war to expand their territory (to 77% of the land area of Palestine) and at the same time drove the Palestinian Arabs across the border, thus creating a majority of Jews within the new state.

Refugees

This they did, quite simply, by the use of mass terror. Massacres of vitlagers like that at Deir Yassin (carried out by Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin's Irgun terrorist group) were common: and of 500 Palestinian villages, 350 were completely destroyed.

900,000 Palestinian refugees were created by the war.

The pamphlet then goes on to discuss the 1967 war using quotes from Zionist military leaders to establish that Israel was not in danger of Arab invasion when the Israelis launched their "preemptive" six-day war.

The authors then proceed to discuss the question 'Is Israel Socialist?" by looking at two institutions that apologists for Zionism point to as evidence of Israeli "socialism"-the Kibbutzim and the Histadrut.

The Kibbutzim, far from being socialist cooperatives, are racially exclusive, based on previously destroyed Palestinian villages, and closely linked to the army.

36% of army officers are kibbutz members who in turn make up only 3% of the population.

As for the Histadrut-the Zionist "trade union federation"- the authors point out that it was also racially exclusive until 1966; that its armed wing up to 1948-the Haganah-participated massacres of Palestinians; and that the Histadrut is in fact the second largest employer in the country!

The racist nature of the Israeli state is clearly established in the pamphlet. The Law of Return and the Nationality Law of 1952 give Jews throughout the world the right to return' to Israel and to immediate Israeli citizenship. This law does not apply to non-Jews.

In practice this means that a Russian or British Jew can immediately move to Israel while a Palestinian who was born there and fled in 1.948 is barred from returning.

Racial discrimination extends to work, housing and the health service. This section concludes with a statement made by David Hacohen, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Department of the Knesset to a visiting group of British MPs in 1973:

"But they are not human beings, they are people, they are Arabs"

The pamphlet goes on to discuss other aspects of the Middle Last crisis-in particular the response of the Arab bourgeois regimes.

After their humiliating defeat in the 1967 war, the Arab leaders backed the PLO which had been formed by Nasser several years previously.

Their motive was to divert attention and disillusionment from their own failings.

El Fateh, the largest of the Palestinian guerrilla groups assumed the leadership of the PLO and created in Jordan (where most of the Palestinian refugees lived) a virtual state within a state for the Palestinian people.

This lasted until "Black September" in 1970 when King Hussein sent his army against the Palestinian guerrillas, crushing their resistance and ending their capacity to launch CrOSS border raids into Israel.

The politics of the PLO are dealt with briefly as the authors point out the weakness of their purely nationalist programme for "a progressive, democratic non-sectarian Palestine in which Christian, Moslem and Jew will worship, work, live peacefully and enjoy democratic rights"

Transfer This is followed by sections on Israel's links with imperialism and recent developments in the area, including Lebanon.

The pamphlet concludes with a section on the support for Zionism in the British Labour Party:

*Palestine Is a Cast • • • for the transfer of population. Let the Arabs be encouraged to move out as the Jews move in ... The Arabs have very wide terriBegin with sponsor tories of their own." • This quote is taken fro the Labour Party's NE EC report for 1944 and t he political position contain ed within it is the result of lo ng years of collaborati on between Zionists and t he British Labour Party.

At the end of the li century the struggle in mai Jewish communities toI the form of a confl between socialism and Zic ism. One consequence of tl was the emergence Labour Zionism, combini the ideas of Zionism a reformist social democracy In 1902 Poale Zi (Zionist Workers) grou were set up in England a began to attract suppr within the Labour Party 1 their Zionist goals.

Extreme right

In 1920 Poale Zion affil¡ated to the Labour Party. It remains affiliated: to this day despite the fact that, for example, it constitutes part of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain which is controlled by supporters of the extreme right wing :Herut Movement of Menachem Begin.

Such has been the support for Zionism within the Labour Party that British Labour Cabinet Ministers in the 1945 Labour government actually supported and assisted the Zionists in their struggle at a time when the Zionists were fighting British troops in Palestine!

In the 1960s Poale Zion formed a front organisation "Labour Friends of Israel" which has received support from among others Peter Shore, Eric Heffer, Greville Janner, lan Mikardo, Joe Gormley and Tony Benn.

But the biggest supporter of Zionism was Harold Wilson, who in return for his unswerving support for Israel received financial: backing from leading capitalists to establish his "kitchen cabinet" in the aftermath of his 1970 electoral defeat.

On the other hand group set up in 1969 called the Labour Middle East Council was for: years prevented from affiliating IAN SWINDALE reviews the pamphlet 'Palestine: Our Struggle" by Roy Stoves and Barry Turner, published by the Bradford Labour Movement Campaign for Palestinian Solidarity. to the Labour Party despite the fact that it had the support of a number of Labour MPs.

It called for Israeli withdrawal from territory occupied in 1967 and supported the right of Palestinians to return to their homeland.

Deplorable

Clearly the record of the Labour Party on Palestineas on most international questions, is deplorable.

But it has been possible through patient work to increasingly isolate those in the Labour Party who argue that support for the H Block hunger strikers equals support for "IRA bombings of innocent civilians"

It is equally necessary that socialists turn their attention to the question of Palestine and create a similar shift in opinion.

The view that anti-Zionism and support for the Palestinian cause is the same as anti-semitism must not be allowed to go unchallenged.

This pamphlet-a mine of useful information -will assist every socialist in the labour movement prepared to take up that fight.

by Roy Stoves. Barry Turner Braciford Labour Movement Campaign for Pak stinian Sohdarb/ Available from Bradford Labour Movement Campaign for Palestinian Solidarity, Flat 3, 40 St Paul's Road, Bradford, price 85p including postage.

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"PALESTINE: Our Struggle